Family
by Indigo-Typhoon
Summary: A young half-elf loses his home and family to viscious racists. But maybe he's not alone in the world after all. My Very first fic with more than one chapter!
1. Yuan's POV

Family – A Tales of Symphonia Fanfiction.

It's been too long since I posted, so here I go. It can be read as slight Kratos/Yuan but mostly it's brotherly affection. This time I just wrote because I wanted to, not because I promised Frosty a fic.

Disclaimer: I always forget this. I don't own Tales of Symphonia or any of the characters. I own a copy of the game which I play obsessively, that's all.

I was howling like a little kid. My eyes were streaming and I was shaking all over. I was pathetic. I could hear the shouts telling me to run, but my legs wouldn't obey. I closed my eyes, waiting for the blow.

Unexpectedly, I felt myself getting yanked backwards out of harm's way.

"Yuan! Move now!"The harsh tone jerked me out of my fearful reverie and I turned and sprinted, gaining speed by the second until I felt like I was flying.

At first I was running blind, completely unaware of my surroundings, seeing nothing but my home in flames, my mother in tears, my father telling me to get out, hearing nothing but my ragged breathing, still sobbing and the gasps from my best friend, forcing air into his lungs.

I don't know how long or far we ran before he stopped, catching hold of me to stop me sprinting on through the dusk. I spun around, throwing myself forward, ignoring the warnings that had been drummed into me from an early age.

_You're already a half elf so you can't afford to have __any__ weird things about you. People are going to hate you at first anyway. You mustn't ever give them a reason to hate you. That means no matter what goes through your head you don't act too smart or too dumb. You don't try to date girls but you act interested in them. And no matter what, you __never ever__ show __any__ affection to another guy. You're already a freak Yuan. Don't give them a reason to suspect you could be gay too._

For once, those words didn't matter. I was too afraid to care; I just clung to him and cried like a baby. I've never really touched him before. Not because of what my parents told me, but because I knew he wouldn't like it. He didn't like to be touched.

This time, I _really _must have looked a sight, because he held me tightly and whispered that I would be okay.

"How can you say that?!?" I demanded, suddenly angry, "My home is burning as we speak. My parents are probably dead; maybe if they're _lucky_ they've been captured as mine slaves. It was _me_ they came for. How the hell can you promise that I'll be _**ok**_!?!"

"Because I won't let you not be ok." I stopped dead. His red eyes were burning with rage. My mind finally clicked, my parents lived north of town, and he lived south of it. It was the middle of the night. We hadn't arranged anything. The only reason he was here tonight was because he came to protect me.

"How did you know?" I whispered, trembling again. He paused briefly, seeming to be considering things carefully.

"I heard Noishe. He was very unsettled. I got up and went to my window. Even from there I could see the flames. Only one family lives all the way out there."

He seemed startled when I lost control again and pressed close to him again. After a moment a little of the tension left him and he hugged me back. As my mind became clearer I realised that I shouldn't be hugging him. Guys weren't allowed to hug other guys.

I mumbled as much as I tried to squirm free. He seemed thoughtful and I watched him. Suddenly I was struck by a realisation that made me feel sick. I was only twelve, just starting to become aware of relationships on a "romantic" level. Kratos was fifteen, going on sixteen. For all I knew he had a girlfriend. It wouldn't be the first time he kept something from me. He's kept bigger secrets. And here I was hugging him. Once again I was the freaky little kid who _still_, after seven years, I suspected he only hung out with out of pity. After all, there was no way in the world that he'd let me hug him like this for any other reason.

"Y'know, you're wrong." He told me bluntly. I stared at him in confusion.

"For one thing, my Dad says that people who say you can't love someone the same gender as you are as stupid and prejudiced as those who hate half-elves. For another, you're allowed to hug someone if they're part of your family." This all made a satisfying kind of sense... except...

"But we aren't family."

"Mom once told me that everyone has two families. There's one family that you're born with. Sometimes you don't love them or like them, but you get them without trying or asking. Then there's a family that you choose. That's a family that never dies, because as long as you're alive you can keep finding new members."

"Am I a part of your chosen family?" I asked curiously.

"You're my kid brother, okay? That means I protect you when you're going to get hurt and you come to me when you're sad or scared, or even just lonely." I stared up at him, feeling a warm glow spread through me.

I always knew that my parents cared about me, but I also knew that they were ashamed of me. This was different from the unconditional love of a parent. This was someone choosing you, over everybody else, to be part of their family, because they cared about you. It felt warm and safe and special. It made me feel like I belonged.

I looked at the trickle of smoke left in the sky. It was going to be a lot of years before I could let myself remember my home and parents without screaming, but I could do it. I wasn't going to give up and die.

Who knows, as I get older I might end up with a big "family." Maybe, thanks to my "big brother" I'd one day be an uncle. I giggled at the thought. Kratos looked at me curiously, but let me be. I followed back to his home, my new home.

A/N: Hmm... The endings a bit weak, but this was my best attempt. The two of them are more OOC than I'd normally write, but it's because they're so young. They haven't come into contact with the war directly yet, so they're a lot more innocent. I'm going to write a companion to this in Kratos' POV, although that may end badly...

P.S. Okay... I just checked for the fun of it, but the actually story is exactly 1,000 words long... freaky.


	2. Kratos' POV

A/N: I decided to post the Kratos POV as a second chapter. The Kratos/Yuan is a lot clearer here, but it's still implied because in this fic Yuan is twelve and it is VERY rare for someone to think/know/suspect they are gay at twelve.

"_Mom, I'm home." I walk into the kitchen, puzzled by the lack of greeting. Instead of Mom, Dad is sat at the table, head in his hands, shoulders shaking. It only takes a moment for me to realise that he's crying._

"_DAD!" I shout distressed. I am only six and a half, so it is easy for Dad to pick me up and sit me on his lap, cuddling me close, even though he knows that cuddles make me feel uncomfortable._

"_Dad, where's Mom?"_

"_Kratos, Mom isn't coming home."_

"_You mean she's dead" I say; blunt already even though I am so young._

"_Yes. But don't worry. Daddy will look after you." I want to tell him that it's ok, I'll help him by looking after myself, but I look at his face, at his broken lost expression and realise that he needs me to need him._

I wake with a jolt and shake my head in disbelief that I'm still having these nightmares almost ten years later. I try to remember all the nightmare evasion strategies, the only one that really seems to work is thinking of something nice that has nothing to do with your nightmare. Sadly, nice and me don't go together.

But I _do_ know someone who's very nice and has nothing to do with my nightmares. Yuan.

Yuan's three years younger than me. He's good-natured and friendly, but being despised for being a half-elf has made him shy. He has long, blue hair that he likes to wear in a loose ponytail. Once he tried pigtails. Not when he was little, last year when he was eleven. I thought he looked really cute, but of course I didn't say so. You don't bring up the fact that you have a gay crush on your best friend in high school. Not ever. Especially not when that friend is still pre-teen, and you're fifteen, going on sixteen.

I really wonder how long a crush lasts and how intense it needs to be before you can call it more than a crush, because I'm starting to come up to a two-year mark and, for me at least, the emotion is kind of alarming in strength.

At that point, Noishe lands on my window sill. Noishe is the protozoan my family cares for. Right now he's in his air form, but Dad reckons he's going to change into Aeshir soon. I remember when he told me that I was really excited, thinking I was going to get to see it. Then Dad had to let me down gently, telling me that in Protozoan terms "soon" was almost a thousand years.

He's tapping at the window, so I get up to let him in, however as soon as I open the window he flies off, I frown and look out the window, trying to see if there's anything that could have spooked him. My blood freezes in my veins.

There is a house on fire in the distance. To the North of town. Yuan's house. I yell for Noishe as I yank a shirt and trousers over my pyjamas, and grab the sword dad's been using to teach me swordplay. I can still just about fit on Noishe's back, but it's hard to balance. But with Noishe's wings carrying us we're at the house in minutes rather than two hours, an hour and a half if I'd sprinted the whole way instead of long-distance running.

"Yuan?" I call out, scanning the clearing, and then I spot him, through the flames. He is cornered, trembling and crying and unaware of his surroundings. With a cry of rage, I release a powerful double demon fang, knocking the attackers temporarily away. I still have just seconds to get Yuan moving.

"Yuan! Move Now!" I yell, fear making my tone harsh as I grab him and haul him away. It seems to snap him out of his terror and he starts sprinting, impossibly fast. He's so much smaller than me, the top of his head only three quarters of the way up my torso when we are stood next to each other, yet he runs like the wind. After a while we reach a safe spot, a place I know they won't come, so I catch hold of Yuan, stopping him before he tears off into Tethe'alla.

He scares me half to death when he suddenly throws himself into my arms, sobbing from the fear. I gently wrap my arms around him, try to comfort him. I tell him not to be scared anymore, promise him that he'll be okay.

"How can you say that?! My home is burning as we speak. My parents are probably dead; maybe if they're _lucky_ they've been captured as mine slaves. It was _me_ they came for. How the hell can you promise that I'll be _**ok**_!?!" He shouts, his beautiful sea-coloured eyes misted with overflowing tears, slim frame still racked by tremors and sobs.

Before I was angry. That anyone would _dare_ to try something so cruel, so obviously deliberately. Now, looking at how effectively they'd destroyed his life, his home, family and peace of mind, I was fuming, I could physically feel the throbbing urge to turn around and hunt down the violent, racist psychopaths. To tear them apart. But there was another even stronger urge. To stay and protect Yuan.

"Because I won't let you not be okay." I tell him, vowing it silently in my heart.

"How did you know?" If I didn't know Yuan, then I would find the question random, as it is, I know he's been quietly making sense of the nights events in the back of his mind, and he's finally realised that it isn't normal for me to be near his house at gone midnight.

I explain about Noishe, leaving out the fact that I had been daydreaming about him just before hand. Unexpectedly, he throws himself back into my arms. I hug him back, because he needs it, but I need to keep a huge amount of self control involved to stop myself from pulling him right into an embrace, intimate rather than comforting.

As suddenly as he started hugging me, he seems keen to stop, muttering about guys not being allowed to hug and trying to squirm free. I frown because I'm not ready to let go of him yet. I decide, seeing as we aren't going to be able to talk about tonight for years, I may as well talk freely.

"Y'know, you're wrong. For one thing, my Dad says that people who say you can't love someone the same gender as you are as stupid and prejudiced as those who hate half-elves. For another, you're allowed to hug someone if they're part of your family." His face becomes momentarily peaceful, satisfied with my explanation, but after a few seconds thought he says:

"But we aren't family." I look at his sad, little face. Right now I know I'd do anything to make him smile again. Even the one thing that I must never ever do, because it will make the nightmares worse than ever. I have to really think about and talk about Mom. I have to tell him the most important thing she ever told me.

"Mom once told me that everyone has two families. There's one family that you're born with. Sometimes you don't love them or like them, but you get them without trying or asking. Then there's a family that you choose. That's a family that never dies, because as long as you're alive you can keep finding new members." I manage to keep my face stoic at this point, although my breathing's become a little irregular and my eyes sting a little with unshed tears as I remember, so vividly, her face as she told me, glowing with the excitement of a shared secret, glittery violet eyes, so unlike mine, framed by unruly russet hair, so _like_ mine.

"Am I a part of your chosen family?" He asks, obviously hopeful, eyes sparkling already.

I inhale deeply. Now is the best chance I will ever have. I could tell him the truth. I could tell him that he means more to me than anyone else in the world. I could tell him that he's the only person in my chosen family that isn't part of my born family. I could tell him that I love him. I could kiss him to prove it. Then I let the air out in a rush.

Because as good as that would make _me_ feel, it isn't what I want. Yuan is twelve. He doesn't need a gay friend who is in love with him. He needs someone who will protect him. Someone he can legitimately claim comfort from. Someone who can look after him. He needs an older brother.

I _could_ be his older brother. Any chance I had with him would fly out of the window once we started to act like siblings. But I could be exactly what he needed. I could protect him from the kids who try to beat him up on the way to and from school, because that's when I'm not with him. I could comfort him whenever he's sad, and if I was his "brother" it would be allowed. I could teach him how to look after himself in preparation for when he's all grown up by looking after him and showing him what I'm doing. I'm actually really good at flirting and reading people, even though I don't find it fun and it's not something I'd try on the person I'd _want_ to flirt with, so I could give him advice when he starts to want to date people. I could teach him to fight. I could be the perfect big brother. If I just threw away my selfish instinct.

"You're my kid brother, okay? That means I protect you when you're going to get hurt and you come to me when you're sad or scared, or even just lonely." I told him. As soon as I see the way his face splits into a grin it's instantly worth knowing that I will _never_ get kissed by him, or date him, never be _intimate_ with him. Because he's happy now that I'm his brother. He's not so scared anymore.

He giggles at a private joke, but one look at him confirms that he doesn't want to tell me. I don't mind and I start leading him home, already wondering what Dad's going to say when I explain this to him and whether Yuan prefers cereal, toast or waffles at breakfast.

A/N: Well... I actually think that one ended okay. I know that Kratos is rather out of character, but my logic behind this is that although his base personality wouldn't change, he wouldn't be as jaded as four thousand years of evil and the destruction of his family would make him. Also the way he thinks of Yuan is based on my knowledge that people who are not naturally, freely affectionate tend to be protective to the point of slightly obsessive to those they do feel affection for. All in all, I'm pretty pleased with this chapter and I've finally made a multi chaptered fic!


End file.
